Finding Your Child's Passion: Visual and Performing Arts

Parenting Future-Focused Kids - Episode 5: "Finding Your Child's Passion: Visual & Performing Arts". Mrs. Cassandra Diffie, Dance Teacher, Athletic Director and Pom Head Coach at Madison No. 1,  joins us to talk about our Visual and Performing Arts Program, the importance of dance, physical activity and arts education and how it supports students' social, emotional, and physical wellbeing! "Finding Your Child's Passion" is a new sub-series of our podcast focusing on how Madison's Signature Programs support students' social, emotional, and academic growth. 

Transcript

Welcome to parenting future focus, kids. Today we are going to talk about the importance of arts education and how physical movement with dance support students social, emotional and physical well-being. And we'd like to welcome Cassandra Diffie, dance teacher, athletic director and pop head coach at Madison, number one to the podcast.

Cassandra, tell us a little bit about yourself in your experience with dance. Hi, I'm Cassandra Diffie. I'm the general dance teacher for Madison, number one. I've been teaching here for the last seven years. I'm in my eighth and I love what I am doing.

That's awesome. So could you tell us and our listeners a little bit about why you're so passionate about arts, education and dance and integrating that into the school day? For me, when I was a student, having arts and dance as part of my general education impacted me so much that it it made me passionate to do it as a teacher as well. And so I know that it can impact your daily mental game while you're at school. And while I didn't technically have it when I was in middle school, I took it all four years of high school as well as throughout my college years, something I knew that I could look forward to everyday, no matter what stresses I may have had. And I believe that they're students that come with that same mentality. It's a class where they know they get to release their stresses. They get to focus on having fun and doing something that's enjoyable to them, that it makes me stronger, passionate about having it care for them.

And it pushes kids creatively and out of their comfort zones. And they're kind of around students they wouldn't normally socialize with, and that might be out of their friend zone. But now they're gaining different friends and different groups, and I think that it is something super important to have an education.

Well, I agree, and I know a lot of our listeners agree, especially that it's offered, you know, we're not a high school district. You know, this is offered at the elementary level. And I think it's so important that students are, you know, have these opportunities early on so that they, like you said, can find out that they're passionate about, you know, maybe pursuing this as a as something further. Aside from that, though, aside from like the career path, why is dance or being physically active during the school day? Important for physical well-being? 

I think it's important to be physically active, whether you're in our dance workout class or P.E. or we have gotten this year. I think it's important because when you're active and moving, you're kind of releasing endorphins and positive energies coming into your body and your mind. And I know that for me and myself, I'm mentally more positive and have a different energy to my day.

If I've been exercising or moving and active that day compared to the days that we all have lazy days that we may be on the couch, but I just have a different outlook on what I'm doing with my day when I know that my body feels good and my mind feels good from moving.

And especially with last year in a COVID year, we were all kind of stuck in contained home, having the opportunity to move at school and be active and engaged and learning at the same time. It's big. I mean, the majority of the kids days, while they may have little small breaks in a classroom, a typical classroom hasyou sitting and writing or reading or watching what's up in front of you and you're not moving and interacting? I think that the physical part is important and it gets our blood flowing and we can think a little bit clearer and we can be more engaged.

I think it allows a lot of those wiggles out, too. And, you know, behavior can go down because you've gotten all of your pent up energy out, right? 
Absolutely. I was just thinking as you were talking about how we've all been stuck inside and we haven't been really moving or physically active.And I know for me it's important to have that outlet because sometimes you feel stuck like you maybe don't want to move. And typically, for me, I always feel better after some sort of movement or being physically active, it makes me more concentrated.

So as you were saying, it's typically the case with our students as well, which is incredibly important, especially for the academic side of things. Have you noticed that students social emotional well-being improves when they're participating in class or being physically active?

Yeah, there is a difference that I notice of students and their social, emotional well-being, and it improves improves for many that are participating in active classes. I mean, just focusing on moving and dancing and getting to listen to music, you know, not all kids have the opportunity to even listen to music outside of school that they wantor that they might enjoy. And so it allows, I feel, the students to have this mental break and in their emotional well-being. Sometimes the kids are like, I want to listen to the song. It helps me escape. It helps me get out of this funk, and so I think they vocalize it to me.

But emotionally they come in here and they get to not worry about the fact that they had a fight with mom that morning or something, and they get to just express themselves in my class or any of our arts classes.

But it definitely gives them that opportunity to be expressive and in tune with their own feeling just by dancing and participating. And along those same lines, you know, as they're able to express themselves, you know, get that mental break.

Maybe feel creative. Do you feel about arts education and integrating these, you know, these creative outlets for our students, is that important for the academic success overall of our students? 100%. I totally think that having arts education promotes academic success and in multiple different ways.

I think that in some ways, some of our arts programs, we include language arts standards or math standards, and there's elements to these ideas that connect us and as well, I think, being able to promote creativity and self-awareness and you're building a student's passion for learning whatever class they find their passion about in the arts.

It gives them a higher drive to want to come to school, to want to learn. And when you give them something to look forward to, I think that that that creates more success all around. Yeah, absolutely. And something that you mentioned, I think it's really important to talk about is the arts education integrates language arts and math skills. 

So could you tell us a little bit about a typical class and what that looks like for your students and how maybe those aspects are integrated? 

So a typical class for me, depending on which class it is, a regular day, all classes, they end up going to like the locker room, they change out, they come in. We do a warm up and stretch together as a class. We learn it's kind of like any core class. They learn the materials for that day and we practice those materials and then we might do small groups. So for example, my beginning classes right now, we're in ballet.

Ballet is our current unit. They come in, we do warm up and stretch their learning vocabulary, which for ballet, and they're combining what the definition is to what their bodies are actually doing and connecting those movements. So not only are they having to write the word and see the definition, they're actually able to act out the words

. And then we practice the different movements. We then may do some challenge moves that make it a little bit more advanced and have them work through that and find creative ways to get their bodies to do these movements.

And then at the end of the unit, they would have to show these dances that they've been learning that performing the vocabulary. So that's kind of an element of where language arts, for example, is in my classroom. Mm hmm.

And so we do that and then we might do a little bit of stretching and working out at the end. And then that's the end of their course day. I really like how you integrate kind of acting out and understanding the vocabulary by doing by being physically active.

I think for me personally, that would help with memorizing the terms right. You're not just sitting down and looking at them, but you're actually doing it. And I think that that helps as far as as learning. So how does the dance program at Madison?

No one prepare students who maybe want to pursue performing arts after middle school. So we offer multiple levels of our classes from beginning to intermediate to advanced, and that's for both our dance programs of mine and the top.

What really gets our beginning kids in there is they only take beginning with our with our program, it's exposing them to that arts program. We have some kids that come through beginning and then they're like, I really enjoyed this, how do I get it in high school?

And we kind of discuss with them talking with counselors how you sign up for classes, how it works there. For our intermediate and vanced classes, they kind of participate in a little more performance opportunities, which gets them further exposure.

For example, our advanced class goes and performs at a high school, so they get to know exactly what it's going to be like at that next level. And we're in communication with a couple local high schools around in order to set them up for going to auditions to get into their programs or the higher level programs.

And we used to take we have it in the last two years due to COVID, but we used to take our advanced classes would go to Disneyland, but they're taking classes there with the professional choreographers and it's almost like an.

Audition process that shows them, hey, if you wanted a career in dance, you would come to this class just like this. You're going to learn they record them, take a video and they show them the class. They're like, Look at what you did here.

You would have stood out. We would have hired you as a Disney dancer, or we would have had you come back for this or we would have made more of this. So they go through like a hiring process when they're there.

And so they get to see a taste of what it's like if they wanted to follow a career path in this as well. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that's super beneficial for our students. And not only are they more prepared to take arts classes at high school level, but it's beyond that as well.

And I know here we're very fortunate to have the Madison Center for the Arts is this, you know, do our students get to perform there? And if so, what does that look like? Yes, for all of our classes we have at the end of each semester, we put on a show ours.

This year is near the end of November and every class gets to perform in it depending on what class they're in. They might perform more dances, but they perform at the Madison Center for the Arts. Now our advanced classes, for example, they got an amazing opportunity offered to them, and they're going to perform with a Cirque variety show that's coming soon. And so they'll get to perform there a second time with the variety show that's going to come in. 

That's amazing, and I'm sure our students are incredibly excited to take part in that. And I know we've been focusing on our middle school levels and, you know, preparing them for high school and beyond and the opportunities they have. But something unique to Madison, I feel, is that the students have the opportunity to participate in dancing in the arts at the K four level as well to even prepare them for your class at the middle school level.

They do. Rose Lane is one of our theater schools and they offer dance as an elective, and I believe they also have a after school dance club team that goes and does extra opportunities. So I do know that it's growing within our school district, and I believe there's another middle school that might be offering some dance classes too. Well, that's awesome, especially if you have maybe a kindergartner who is super into dance or just, you know, needs to get the wiggles out. And, you know, that helps them with the academic things that we talked about before.

So I think that's amazing and an incredible opportunity for for those Madison students. But if you're at home, maybe you're still learning online or maybe you're listening in and you're not within the Madison School District. What are some ways that families can integrate arts, education, maybe dance or physical movement at home this year?

Well, with social media these days, there is so much access to online materials that parents and families and kids can find, and if they're kind of working together, they can do it safely and appropriately. I know that sometimes social media can get out of hand.

But I know that YouTube has a variety of videos that you can follow along to that. Some are more intricate like we're going to do this workout together, and it's a family functional workout. And the video has a mom and dad and her two kids in their living room working out and using pillows as weights, for example, because they have like a three year old working out. And it's something fun to do when you get to see another family. There's other easy ways that are less time consuming. I know that last year when we were home, I had a challenge for my kids and I said, find a 15 second dance online, learn it and teach a family member and send me your video and the amount of family members that I got to see that looked like they were just having fun. And that kid became so invested because it was it was them teaching it.

They got to be the teacher for that moment that they got more invested in their learning and they got a new perspective of, Oh, this is what it feels like to teach dance to someone else. And maybe here's the challenges that I saw.

And maybe this changes how I am as a student, and I know that there's families that have, they say they have no time in the world to do these extra things. My family, when I was growing up, that was a struggle.

But I do know that we turned our chore day kind of into a dance party. So every Saturday was chore day for my family, and we each got assigned something different. But when we came into the room that we had to clean and we cleaned as a family, in that room, it became person gets to choose the

songs for now and 30 seconds, we're all going to stop and we're going to do our best. Mm-Hmm. So it's something that we were still cleaning, but it became something that we did together as a family and we're moving and cleaning.

So there's multiple ways that you can get creative with it. So that you're not losing time in your day, if you feel you have a lot on your task list but still getting stuff done, but maybe changing it one day to be a fun zone of like we were doing chores and I was totally scrubbing dishes and

polishing the furniture. But I was jamming out while I was doing it, so it became interactive and fun and we did it as a family. I love that idea. Especially I feel like everyone feels very busy and overwhelmed right now.

So to be able to integrate dance and even family time around chores or things that need to get done. But in a way that, like you said before, releases endorphins. And it kind of is a fun way to look at that things that need to get done around the house by also keeping people physically active as well. I think that's important. And even with the families that you're social distance from, like if you're still being cautious and sticking to your immediate family, but you have an uncle that live in another house and they want to be active with you.

I, for example, would call my mom and every other day we would get on the phone each other and we think we're going to walk in the mailbox together through our phone. So we would just talk to each other while we walk to our mailboxes and walk back, and we were active and doing it together, even though we were at our separate houses. So it's just getting a little bit creative and making that effort right? Absolutely. And even students, maybe who are learning from home and are aren't able to interact in person can do that as well.

And I really like the idea that you brought up before about learning a dance, you know, 15 seconds of a dance and then teaching it to somebody else. You know that so many dances trend online, and I think that keeps it relevant for our students, too, who want to be involved, be more physically active, to learn, dance

, to teach it. I think that's such a great idea. So thank you. Yeah, and they can totally. We had some kids that learned some of those popular dances that are going around and training, and we had some that decided I'm going to make my own dance up using the five jazz words we learned this week and teach

it to a friend. They they get that freedom. It was kind of fun to see that is really connected with it. Yeah, and who knows, maybe that's the next trending dance. So instead, yeah, I definitely feel motivated to apply what they're learning in school and and see where it takes them.

You know, I just think that kids need to take take the chance on arts. There's some students that come into our programs and seem terrified to try dance like I am not a dancer. I don't. I didn't sign up for this feeling.

And then they end up loving it because they had this preconceived idea of what these arts classes are. And it kind of goes for all arts classes like, I'm not an draw. I don't want to be in art or I can't act this idea that they can't do something or that we don't want to challenge them to

try it. It really pushes them and gets them out of a comfort zone that, you know, maybe at the end of the semester, they realize I don't want to dance again, but they did it and they realize they can do these things.

These kids are way more capable than sometimes they believe in themselves, and it's so fun to see kids find a passion for something that they didn't think they would ever like. Mm hmm. I always encourage kids if you get somewhere that you didn't mean to be.

Just try it out because you may end up loving it. And I love that message, and thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate it if your child is interested in arts dance. Check out Madison number one or our district website.

Madison A-Z dot org. And thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I appreciate it all. Thank you for listening to parenting future focus kids. To listen to our latest episodes, visit our website at Madison A-Z Dorgi podcast or search Madison School District on Spotify.